LETTER: Readington Township stance on Solberg Airport wrong

On Nov. 6 I attended a public hearing at the Readington Middle School to discuss Readington Township’s proposed escalation of their eminent domain action against Solberg Airport. I thought it was going to be a discussion. It turned out to be a sham, a show produced and choreographed to satisfy the legal requirement to hold such a hearing before ratifying an ordinance. So much for the democratic process.

Speakers waited patiently to be heard. Without exception, people offered their disapproval of the ordinance: the total seizure of the airport, including land, equipment, facilities and even the 70-year-old family business operating there.

The pleas were mostly civil, emotional at times, but clearly heartfelt and unanimous in their objections. After a long evening, Mayor Julia Allen and company kindly acknowledged, then ignored, all they had heard.

Except for Frank Gatti, who dissented, committee members regurgitated the same old rationales for their egregious actions. They played the jet-scare card, the open-space card and added the we-so-love-the-airport-we-must-save-it card to justify their bigger land grab.

What Allen and the committee fail to realize is taxpayers have grown weary of the misleading statements, the PR firms, the backroom decisions, the indifference to the community and, most of all, the enormous waste of their money for this unjust action year after year.

Allen stubbornly ignores the court system, as they lose one motion after another. By the way, the most recent judicial disapproval came only a day after this hearing, voiding their ordinance entirely.

The township committee cannot continue to ignore the taxpayers and the courts. We can no longer afford the cost of this terrible folly just to satisfy Allen’s land lust.